Weekender #250

💰 Five money moves that calm the anxious-about-the-economy spiral.

👗 The 2026 fashion trends worth trying (and how to wear them).

🧘 When anxiety spirals into worst-case scenarios, checking the facts helps.

🎯 Being too good at your job can cap your next promotion. Here’s what’s actually happening.

Friendship in adulthood is just different. It’s more complicated to make new ones, harder to stay connected with the ones you have, and surprisingly difficult to let go of the ones you’ve outgrown. In honor of National Friendship Day, here’s how to handle every part of it.

How to Stay Connected When Life Is Busy

Lower the bar for what counts as a plan. Stop waiting for the perfect dinner with perfect scheduling. You’ll wait forever.

The Partiful method: create an event for literally the dumbest thing and invite everyone. A last-minute movie night, a “come try this sauce I made” hangout, a walk where nothing happens. You’re not coordinating. You’re just opening a door. The people who matter will walk through it.

Become doorbell friends with the people nearby. Pop by with a coffee, text “I’m around the corner, got 20 minutes?” No RSVP required. The bar is low on purpose.

And if distance is the issue, it doesn’t have to ruin the friendship. A standing monthly FaceTime, a voice memo back and forth, a shared playlist all count. The format is up to you. Showing up consistently is what keeps it alive.

How to Make New Friends as an Adult

Nobody really prepares you for how hard this is, but it’s a learnable skill. Start with small talk as an on-ramp, not filler. Ask follow-up questions, remember what people tell you, bring it back next time. Find ways to be helpful and connect people who should know each other. Being genuinely interested in people is what turns an acquaintance into a friend.

Then join things with a built-in recurring reason to show up: sports leagues, Gals That Brunch, networking groups, fitness classes. The repetition does the relationship-building for you. You don’t have to force it. Just keep showing up.

How to End Friendships (or Let Them Change)

Some friendships have a season. Letting one go is being honest about where your energy belongs, and that takes maturity worth respecting in yourself.

Not every ending needs a formal conversation. Some friendships can just fizzle. You both get busy, the effort stops being mutual, you grow in different directions. That’s a natural ending, and you’re allowed to let it be one.

If it does need to be more explicit, you can simply say you’re taking some space. “I need some space right now” is a complete sentence. You don’t owe anyone a detailed explanation, but you do owe yourself the boundaries that keep your energy where it belongs.

How to Keep the Good Ones Deep

Be the friend you want: the one who checks in, remembers what’s going on, and actually follows through on plans. Reciprocity is what separates a real friendship from a pleasant acquaintance.

Be selective with your energy. The friendships worth protecting are the ones where you can be fully yourself, with people who share your values and leave you feeling good after you’ve seen them. A few of those are worth more than a full social calendar. Treat them accordingly.

Sunday night, and the dread shows up before you’ve even opened your laptop. Something slipped over the weekend: a deadline that moved, an approval still sitting in someone’s inbox, a handoff nobody confirmed. By Monday morning you’re not leading the day. You’re doing archaeology on your own projects.

monday.com puts every project, task, and deadline on one board your whole team actually checks, so status stops living in six different apps and starts living in one place everyone can see. Automations route reminders and updates without anyone typing a status email, and integrations pull Slack messages and inbox activity into the same view, so nothing gets lost between tools.

Layer the Executive Digest agent on top, and it scans every project overnight, flagging what’s behind schedule or waiting on your sign-off before you’ve had coffee.

A Risk Analyzer agent catches deadlines about to slip, and monday sidekick answers “where do things stand?” in plain language, no digging required. Dashboards roll it all up by team so a glance tells you more than a status meeting used to.

You start Monday already running.

👉 Try monday.com free.

📚 Read:  Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune

Best friends Frankie and George head into her wedding weekend when the fiancé bails the morning it all starts, leaving only a note. Carley Fortune’s latest, and it’s as swoony and emotionally wrecking as her previous books.

📺 Watch: Summer House (Bravo on Peacock)

Season 10 is fully on Peacock, all 16 episodes, and it’s peak Bravo chaos: drama, messy friendships, and the kind of tension that turns a one-episode check-in into a four-hour binge.

🎧 Listen: I Just Might by Bruno Mars

His first song ever to debut at No. 1, and once you hear it you’ll understand: tight harmonies, smooth horns, and a disco-funk groove that sounds built for summer.

Three bags of trail mix and a shrinking pile of Kind Bars. That’s what the snack drawer says about how much the team matters. You want it to say something else, but sourcing anything better means a big-box run you don’t have time for.

Simpalo Snacks delivers curated boxes of better-for-you, name-brand snacks straight to your office or your team’s homes. No store run, no contract.

You pick what goes in, or let your team choose their own favorites. Boxes ship within one business day, and gluten-free, vegan, and nut-free options mean nobody’s stuck with the same tired bag twice. Add a handwritten note or your branding, and the box reads as real appreciation.

Over 5,137 companies have switched.

👉 Build your first snack box (and score up to $200 in Amazon Gift Cards).

Upcoming Events

• Thu 8/6 @ 9AM PT: Harnessing Change Workshop with NextArrow
• Thu 8/13 @ 10AM PT: Your Voice, Not Theirs: The public speaking class for leaders (SGS Only* | Join the waitlist)

* Smart Girl Society is our private community for women who want deeper conversations, accountability, and tools that actually make life easier. Join the waitlist to get in the next round.

She started life on the streets of Las Vegas, and somehow ended up exactly where she was supposed to be. Zeppole was fostered by a close friend and quickly made it clear she wasn’t going anywhere. Now? She paddleboards, flies coast to coast, and wins over every single person she meets like it’s her full-time job. (It basically is.) Wherever her people are, that’s exactly where Zeppole wants to be.

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