What We Learned About Producing Season 1

  What We Learned About Producing a Podcast About Friendship with our Long Distance BFF

In October 2017, We had the idea for our podcast, What Are Friends For, on a cross country road trip where Pallavi was moving from New York City to Los Angeles and Samantha was along for the ride only to return to NYC 2 weeks later.  We had an idealistic view of what this joint creative venture might entail, and were only slightly aware of all that we would learn and discover about Friendships as a whole, our friendship specifically, and working together for the first time.   If you would like to listen while you read, please find out Final Episode here (link):

1. Speaking your ideas out loud has power and is the first step to making them happen.
2. Loneliness is Isolating, but fear is paralyzing.
3. Action moves you through your struggles.
4. Everyone has a podcast.
5. Your mom will comment that you curse. When you curse on a podcast, you have to label it explicit.
6. Everyone has something to say about friendship.
7. The learning curve gets steeper as an adult.  
8. If you want to do, surround yourself with doers.
9. You can still pull all nighters after college. All nighters are simply harder after college.
10. It’s not the tool, it’s how you use the tool. It’s up to us on how we define ourselves and then present it to the world. It’s not our business how others receive it. Social Media included. 
11. It feels  weird asking other people to come look at this thing I made. If it is useful, it won’t feel like you are asking.
12. You have to be the kind of friend you wish you had.  Invite people to go out, play games, or just talk on the phone. Everyone can feel alone, so be the friend who reraches out.
13. Persistence in important. Friendship is all about commitment, so just show up.
14. Just try. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Go at 80%, figure out the last 20% as you go, better than not trying at all.
15. It is easy to share the good emotions and experiences, but it is the more troubling ones that connects us to other people.
16. Emotions are a huge factor in how we deal with triumph and trauma. Shame can cause us to ghost out on a relationship, but the mark of a strong friendship (or even just a strong friend) is when you can have the difficult conversations and move past them.
17. Proximity is important, but not essential.
18. Representation Matters, and the conversation is crucial.
19. It’s okay to disagree, It’s okay to fight, It’s what you do after that matters.
20. It’s also okay to let go.  Not every person in our life is meant to stay there permanently.  If a relationship is no longer enriching each of your lives, it might be time to say good-bye.