Nicole:

Hey friend! I am so excited for us to chat in this particular talk because this one’s a little different from the rest. I’m not gonna lie to you, I had something entirely different planned to talk about but I travel everywhere with my simple podcast gear. It’s a microphone and my iPhone using voice memos. So, no, it’s not the fanciest sounding audio but it’s real and it allows me to come to you with the things that I know matter when they matter. Today, I am chatting with you guys from Cartagena, Colombia. I’m actually in town for a beautiful wedding, probably one of the most beautiful weddings I’ve ever been to. And, that’s why you’re probably hearing in the background music and dancing; all the sounds of Colombia. So please excuse it if it’s distracting – but I hope that it adds some color to the conversation we’re gonna have today. It’s about what’s happening to me here. It’s about a realization that I dawned upon. It’s something that I feel will impact you in a way that will cause you to think, become more introspective, and of course, be more intentional about your relationships. I wanted to not waste a moment, I didn’t wanna wait til I got back home for you guys to hear what you needed to know. So, lean in, friend, because we’re gonna have a chat.

Now, it feels weird for me to say this but it is my truth, and above all else, I never thought I’d be this type of person. Girl, I have girlfriends. I know! I never ever thought I’d be the person to say that but, I do! I’ve got the Sex And The City thing, I’ve got the little pack that you get to roll with. I’ve got my go-to friends in a group text that I can chat with at any time. Jen, Jada, Nikki, Erica – if you hear this, this episode’s about you.

Now I want you guys to understand that I never ever thought – for the reasons that most of us thought – that I would be a girl who had girlfriends. I was a lone soldier and I didn’t need anybody, right? I mean, heck, there’s a million reasons why I don’t need friends. I’ve got a family, I’ve got a husband. I don’t have the time, but in reality, it wasn’t about those things. The reason why I thought I didn’t need friends, good girlfriends, is because I didn’t trust people. I had fear and I definitely didn’t know if I was worth it. I didn’t need them because I thought that they didn’t want me. And I don’t know where or when it happens to most of us, but we get to this point in our life, I don’t know if it’s late high school or after college, but we get to this place where it becomes really difficult to make new friends.

I always joke there’s kind of the after 30 mark, like what are you doing? You know, life is so busy, so full. Am I going to go to another woman and just say like, “Hey, let’s go out to dinner.” You know, it’s awkward, right? But the reality is the same people that we were when we were younger. When we’d come home and we’re like, we’re friends with everyone in our class, or we’re always seeking out a new best friend or in college where we always seem to roll as a pack and never go to the bathroom alone. We haven’t changed from that person. We just started neglecting the fact that we still have the same needs and deprioritizing them. The reality is the role of having girlfriends fills a very important part in who you are and what you’re trying to become. My girls are the ones that I go to when I want to complain about my husband. They’re also the ones I go to when I want to celebrate him. My girlfriends are the ones who put things into context for me, all of them. They remind me that there’s good that comes with bad. They call me out. They challenge me and they love me hard. My girlfriend is the ones that keep me pointed towards God. They hold my values and my priorities above anything else and always remind me of who I am and where I want to go.

My girlfriends are the ones that relate whenever my kids are doing something crazy and they’re also the ones that hold me accountable if I’m doing something crazy. They’re the ones that clean up my battle wounds and send me back to fight. They’re the ones that’ll come up behind me and fight with me if needed. I can’t believe that in my mid thirties I finally found my people. I found my home and I’m holding on tight. My squad, my group of girlfriends, I’m so grateful to them because they pursued me. If you asked them, they’ll tell you, “oh, Nicole, we decided that we were going to be friends long before you even knew.” They’d already had a friendship and they said they needed to round out their group and they knew that I was the person to be part of it and Gosh, you know what? I’m so grateful that they did because they stayed in my inbox. They were intentional about wanting that friendship. They chased after me. They literally said, “Hey Nicole, we want you to be part of this. We’re making space for you and whatever’s required, we’re here for you.”

Now, I know that a lot of you guys right now are like, well, how will I even find that? Right? How will I be in a position where I’m going to have people who are going to pursue me? That’s crazy, right? Understand that it wasn’t over the top. It was a situation where they just decided and they were intentional, so it including me. It meant inviting me to places, places to go, things to do. But understand this… For a lot of you where you’re saying to yourself, how am I going to find this? Some of you already have it. What’s happening is you’re rejecting these friendships. You’re saying, “no.” You’re not making yourself available. You’re not stepping into what’s being provided for you for whatever reason, trust, fear, time, worth, whatever it is. You got to stop turning away from what God has for you because these people will fill a gap, a place in your heart that you probably didn’t even know existed. So, I want to bring you back to Colombia. I’m here in town for this wedding and it is gorgeous. I mean, I have never walked the streets of Cartagena before, but it is like a mixture of New Orleans and Europe, Spain and true South American flare.It is absolutely stunning.

If you haven’t gotten out of here before, definitely put it on your list because it is beautiful and while I’m here, I’m doing the thing that I do. Eating street food, talking to locals, hanging out, spending time with everyone who’s around and that’s all good and great until you get food poisoning. Yup, that’s right. I’m recording this from bed right now with the most rumbly stomach, the worst headache, achy joints. I am in bad shape, but get this. Just a couple hours ago I was even worse shape. I was crumpled up on a ball on my bathroom floor knowing that I couldn’t make it back to bed and run back again another time. Moms, I’m going to be a little graphic here because frankly you understand this, we become, totally immune to poo conversation. But guys, it was coming out of all ends. I was not feeling well, queasy… everything. And what happened was, that all I could do was grab my phone. It was close to midnight and send a text message to my girlfriends.

I sent them a message and I said, “girls, I’m in a bind because I’m in town for a friend’s wedding and I feel guilty that I’m not going to be able to go. I don’t know if I’m going to recover by morning and I don’t want to miss the service.” And my girlfriends – being the amazing women they are. The first one they did was tell me, ‘hey, protect the asset.’ Right? I love Jen. Jen’s like protect the asset and the asset is me, right? I’m responsible for a lot of people. I’m responsible to show up and that means that I have to put my health and wellness first. So they reminded me that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the fact that I wanted to make sure I was okay. And then after that they said, ‘get some rest, see how you feel, and then check back in the morning.’ Well, it wasn’t too long… just a couple of hours where I’m sending out another mayday message. I’m like, you know what guys? My room phone isn’t working and I’m nervous about whether or not I’m going to be able to get some meds. I think this is more serious. I didn’t even know what to ask. I didn’t even know how to make myself vulnerable in front of them. Let me be honest here. If you’re anything like me, friend, you probably have a hard time asking for help. You have a hard time humbling yourself to say, I can’t do this by myself. If anything, you may even say to yourself, I don’t want to be a bother and I don’t deserve it, but the reality is I needed help.

So I told them, I said, ‘hey, my room phones not working and if possible, could one of you guys help me?’ I can’t tell you the mix of emotions that went on inside me there. It takes a lot whenever you’re the person who runs things to be able to say, I’m at loss and I don’t even know what I need. I can’t even articulate how you can help me, but please do. Now, I want to tell you the power of girl friends by illustrating what happened in the next 20 minutes. In just 20 minutes, my phone rang. It was the front desk at the lobby, in broken English. He said to me, your friend called from the United States. She said that you’re not feeling well. I’m sending a doctor to your room and some supplies.

When I tell you, and I’m trying not to get choked up about it now, but when I tell you that tears started rolling from my eyes. I’ve never felt so loved and cared for. And within 20 minutes a doctor was at my room with crackers, Ginger Ale, meds and within two hours of resting and caring for myself, protecting the asset, I was on the mend.

Even from a distance, my friends, my girlfriends managed to pick me up from the bathroom floor and tuck me into bed. And this is the power of strong female friendships. They pick you up when you’re at your worst. They go out of their way to think of you. They make sure that you are strong. Now, here’s the lesson from all this because I know that for some of you guys, it sounds so far-fetched. It sounds so impossible. It sounds so difficult. It’s how am I going to get someone to pursue me and I don’t even know people that I trust like that. Well, the reality is they don’t show up overnight. The first thing you have to do is admit that you need them, to say that there’s someone that you need to stand in your gap, right? It can’t always be just your husband or just your kids. It can’t always be just you. I had to say to myself that I deserved positive female friendships; that I needed women who have shared similar experiences to lean on, to be able to challenge me, to be able to hold me accountable, to be able to keep me pointed towards my goals, to help me be my best self, and that’s exactly what these women do for me every single day. I needed the group chat. I needed a place to vent and I needed a place to cry.

Now I know that being hurt in the past through these relationships makes it so difficult. I know what it’s like to have the fear that none of these things will ever work out. I know how challenging it is to make time. Most importantly, if you say to yourself that you’re worth it, you’ll find that those other things become not so challenging. I had to allow myself to say that I was going to be all in on this friendship, that I was willing to allow myself to be hurt again because here’s what happens. If you say to yourself, you’re going to be vulnerable; if you say you’re going to live and tell and breathe and be your whole truth, well, it gives them – your new girlfriend the permission to be theirs.

I knew that if I could live in my truth and tell these women my truth, that I would receive it back and it was in this moment where I leaned on them where I said I need help, and they showed up. They managed to pick me up off the floor from miles away. It was in that moment that I was healed. I’m so grateful for them now I want to tell you that you deserve and can achieve friendship. You’re probably already experiencing it. If it’s the woman who takes a couple extra minutes to chat with you while you’re waiting for your frappuccino every morning or the coworker where you guys spend hours just gabbing and griping about your boss, or if it’s that insta friend where you guys are always going back and forth in the dms, but you never really meet in person.

True friendship starts with intentionality. You have to intentionally pursue them and that’s what Nikki did for me. In my group of girlfriends she’s the one who decided Nicole is going to be our friend whether she likes it or not, and she started inviting me places. She started making space for me and I know you guys are saying to yourself now, oh yeah, well making space for me, who’s doing that? I’m not getting invites. Think about this. You probably are, but you’re saying no or you’re putting off the energy that the answer is going to be no before they even show up. Against my better judgment, against what was my norm when Nikki said, ‘hey Nicole, can you come out to Hawaii? A bunch of us are getting together.’ I said, yeah, I’ll make the time for this, I’ll see what happens and I’m not going to lie to you. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, but I’m so glad I did. While we out there, we all looked at each other and we said with intentionality, we want to do life together.

We don’t want to be in this thing by ourselves, that we care about our friendship and value our friendship and we want it to be honest with ourselves and with each other, and it was in that moment that everything changed. There was an emptiness that I felt that I didn’t know that I had and these girls help to fill it. I was so grateful and I still am because fast forward to this beautiful wedding and Colombia where I’m sick because I had to try the street food and it was those same girlfriends that picked me up when I have a bad day, that picked me up when the business seems like it’s not doing so great, that pick me up when the kids are driving me crazy or my husband sets me off… those same girls managed to pick me up off that bathroom floor and tuck me into bed with exactly what I needed. I want to tell you that you deserve this, that you deserve to like God to provide you with everything you need abundantly and exceedingly. I want you to know that you have prayed for this. You vocalize this. You’ve said, I need help with my business. I need support with my kids. I need someone who can help me understand what’s happening in my marriage or with my husband.

You’ve said out loud that this is something you need. You’ve been seeking answers and I’m telling you those answers may be in the form of friendship. But it starts with you. It starts with you living your truth. It starts with you saying, I’m willing to put myself out there because guess what? Let’s say it doesn’t work out. Let’s say the friendship doesn’t hold true. It wouldn’t be the first time, right? You still made it back. And I want to tell you that this cause, your needs, your desire and the love that you have to give because you know that you have it is worthy. Get back out there.

Ask that coworker say awkwardly, ‘Hey, I know that we hang out a lot for lunch, but I was wondering if you wanted to like catch a movie. My husband doesn’t want to see it, it’s a romcom and the kids are driving me crazy and I’d love an excuse for us to just get out. If you’re interested, do you want to grab some like mani pedis and a cocktail?’ See what they say! What’s the worst that could happen? Because I can tell you that the best that can happen is that they are an answered prayer. Now, before you get yourself out there, before you say to yourself that this is something you’re going to do, I want to tell you that there’s work that we have to do at ourselves. I know that society has fed us a lot of things, that has told us a lot of things about who we are and what we’re capable of, and it’s those very beliefs that have caused us to feel like we don’t need friendships and feel like they’re not even possible.

Well, I want to tell you that’s not true. If I can do it, you can too. And positive friendships are out there. You’re one of them. I’m one of them. We’re all waiting for someone to love us. I want you to know that if you can get past this thing, this thing that I’m going to talk to you about in our next chat that they will find you. Before I let you go from our chat, I just want to do a little shout out to all the good girlfriends out there. To all the women out there who show up, who keep at it, who lift each other. You’re one of them, and I can proudly say that I’m one of them. And I want to say I love you Jen, Nikki, Jada, Erica.. thank you for being my friend. Thanks so much for listening, friend. If you enjoyed this podcast, head over to NicoleWalters.com. I’d love for us to stay in touch, so make sure you drop your email address so I can send inspiration, business details and the occasional funny story. And, because I’m so generous, there might even be a selfie in the mix! Thanks again. Make sure you subscribe and come back soon.<>/div

• Why opening yourself up to friends is essential,
• How I slowly learned to ask for help,
• Why I never thought I’d have girlfriends, and
• What you can do to grow your circle as an adult

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If you’re looking for the strategies and encouragement to pursue a life of purpose, this is the podcast for you! Week after week Nicole Walters will have you laughing hysterically while frantically taking notes as she shares her own personal stories and answers your DMs about life, business, and everything in between.

As a self-made multimillionaire and founder of the digital education firm, Inherit Learning Company, Nicole Walters is the “tell-it-like-it-is” best friend that you can’t wait to hang out with next.

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